I want to encourage those who put in the time to provide us with maps, so I really wanted to like this product.

However, it was simply poorly thought out and poorly executed. One often can't tell exactly what they're looking at. This is often due to small, avoidable errors. Like the door frames or furniture in rooms casting their shadows over nearby walls, forcing the mind to perceive them as being part of the floor instead of walls.

The ships designs would make more sense if there were a consistent design philosophy behind them. Rooms in spaceships are purpose built, not just the empty spaces inside the hull frame randomly filled with furnishings. In all this product suffered from "using the templates and tokens I have" rather than "finding the templates that work well".

If you enjoy beautifully-detailed technical plans and battlemaps of all manner of spacecraft to enhance your space gaming, this is a real treat!

To start with, there is a delightful 'scout ship' design called the Firelight. The detail is amazing, you can just about hear the hum of the drives and see the medical equipment at work... as well as the large-scale battlemap version spread over several pages, there's a one-page overview, a sheet with all the stats, and a rather nice 'scan' in green...

Then several other smaller (mostly singleship) vessels get the same treatment. Some are designed for combat, others could be one-man scout or courier vessels.

Just looking at them starts spawning adventures that take your ship beyond being a means from getting from A to B (or a mere fighting vehicle) to becoming an integral part of the plot, part of the stories you will tell in your science fiction alternate reality.

A real treat, and a fine addition to the diversity of craft plying the space lanes in your universe, whether you play High Space with the Savage Worlds ruleset or any other far future game.

It is hard to know what to expect when getting a ship design and map pack. There are several other similar lines already available from this site, two lines that come immediately to mind are Futura Armada and the line by UKG publishing. I really liked those two.

This one does not disappoint. I can see this in use in a gaming session, which is the entire point of the product. My only complaints are:

1) I would like to have it already tell me what sort of Aquisition level this is, so I know at a glance if it is right for my gaming group. This is a really good way to see just how "good" a given vessel is at a glance.

2) It would be fun to see a pre-made crew, maybe with some sort of plot hooks or something so that it can be plopped into a game. Of course, this part is not necessary, especilally considering the price. I figure that it is easier to sell more desings than designs with crwws that may or may not be used by a given group.